Ojos de la Fe

Well, this week was disappointing in some ways, but also excellent in others. The disappointment came with some baptisms that fell through - we were hoping to baptize two families, la familia Cuellar and la familia Solis, both of whom we have been teaching for a long time, this week, but all of them fell through. That was hard for me, but I know that it is the Lord’s way of teaching me patience. These two families are still progressing toward baptism and I have faith that they will make it, but probably not while I’m here in La Colorada, seeing as how we have transfers this week. I was pretty disappointed about that, but I know that the Lord wants me to understand to be less self-centered: baptisms aren’t ever, or at least shouldn’t ever be, about me. It’s not about how many baptisms I’m present in or whether or not I’ll get the chance to take the coveted "photos in white" before the baptism, it’s completely about these families, their progress, what they need. So I have committed to the Lord that I’m going to strive to be a non-self centered person, to truly focus on the needs of the people around me instead of my own desires, and do all I can to serve the people around me and help them progress to baptism in the Lord’s time, not in my own.
Well, apart from that important lesson, it was a great week because we had the privilege to have a multi-zone conference and a mission leaders meeting with Elder C. Scott Grow of the Quorum of the Seventy. It was incredible to be able to be in the presence of a General Authority and learn from his wisdom and feel his love for the Savior, his true conversion to the gospel. Just being in his presence made me want to be a better missionary and a better person, and I learned a LOT from him. He talked a lot about faith - about looking at people, areas, missions, months, etc, with eyes of faith to find and recognize the people that the Lord is preparing to be baptized. He taught us about the fact that although we focus a lot on numbers in the mission, this is truly a spiritual work where we can and should receive revelation for our areas every day, that the Lord really is preparing thousands of people in the city of Santa Cruz to receive the gospel. He invited us to pray and ask the Lord to reveal to us the number of people that He is preparing to be baptized every month, and then to trust completely in the revelation the Lord gives us, and then to go find those promised people, those promised families. He told us, "It doesn’t matter so much what the number is, because the Lord will be preparing a different number of people in every area this month. But I promise you that the number will be much bigger than any of you think it is." I am going to be praying a lot to know the number of people the Lord is preparing for the month of April, wherever I am. And then I pray to have the faith to be able to bring about the Lord’s plans, and to recognize who are the prepared people, and then to bring them unto Chist through the door of baptism!

I also had an extra special privilege during these two days of meetings: an interview with Elder Grow. He chose a few people to interview, like 15 out of the mission, including me! We talked for about ten minutes about how I decided to go on a mission, what I have learned here in the mission, etc. And then at the end he said, "Tell your family that this week you had an interview with a General Authority, and that this General Authority looked into your eyes and saw a daughter of God striving to do His will, and that He is pleased with you." WOW. It felt great to hear that, but I know I still have a long way to go to be ready to return to my Heavenly Father again.

I feel my conversion deepening every day as I identify more and more weaknesses and try, through prayer and work, to overcome them. I’m sad that I’ll probably be separated from Hermana Hincapie, but I’m excited for a new opportunity to learn more and come closer to Christ. I love you all!

Have a great week,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Oh yeah, and a few photos: we have here a photo with the family of the bishop, where I eat lunch every day in La Colorada.

 And look what else I found! Yep, that’s right... Steve Young and the 49ers made it all the way to a market in Bolivia. I just HAD to buy it, seeing as how it cost less than $1.50. I couldn’t resist. :)

Feliz Dia J

March 17, 2014

Well, life is going great for Hermana Hincapie and me. We were overjoyed to see the miracle baptism of Anyelo, as I talked about last week. He was so thrilled to get baptized, the ward was excited and about 40 people went to the baptism - we’re really starting to see the missionary spirit in our ward! And then to make things even better, our two families with baptism date for this Saturday, the familia Solis and la familia Cuellar, came to the baptism and brought someone else with them! They really liked the baptism, and commented that they’re more sure that they want to take this step. La familia Solis, single mom Wilma and her daughter Paola, also had their baptismal interviews yesterday. Also a miraculous story - on Saturday, we did the pre-interview, and Wilma hesitated on Joseph Smith, insisting that she wasn’t 100% sure that he is a prophet of God, even though she has said previously that she knows that he was. We didn’t know what to do, and were praying silently to know how to respond. After talking about it a little bit, I had the idea to pray, right then and there, to ask, so we kneeled down and she prayed. After, we talked about how she felt and she said she felt embarrassed/ashamed for having prayed. I wasn't sure what to say to that, but Hermana Hincapie was able to powerfully bear her testimony because when she had doubted previously about the Book of Mormon, she read it and then felt embarrassed/ashamed as well, because she felt like she was asking God something she already knew perfectly well to be true. When Hermana Hincapie said that, Wilma felt the Spirit and acknowledged that she really did know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, she was just nervous and doubting in her testimony. That was a miracle for me and a testimony that God has us in this area for a specific reason - if Hermana Hincapie hadn’t had that same experience as Wilma, maybe she wouldn’t be getting baptized this Saturday. So we’re pretty excited to see these families enter the waters of baptism!
This past Wednesday was my birthday - my only birthday in the mission! I can’t believe it’s ending so fast! I’m going to try to attach a few birthday photos along with the photo of Hermano Anyelo’s baptism. My pensionista (the woman who makes our lunch, Hermana Susana) made a cake and then after singing happy birthday, stuck my head in it - tradition here, ha. And my companion surprised my with a big "Feliz Cumpleaños" banner that she had the chance to do the day before because we were in an exchange. So it was a fun birthday. Thank you once again, Mom and Dad, for the package. Especially thank you for sending two of everything because I could share it with Hermana Hincapie and she loved it. 

I want you all to know that this gospel is true. It changes our lives, our very beings, if we let it - if we truly live the gospel and not just "halfway." The little things, scripture study and prayer, are so essential for our true conversion. If you don’t feel as close to the Lord as you’d like to be, I invite all of you to study your scriptures more deeply and pray more profoundly, because in that way, we receive of His spirit and are purified, our very hearts are changed, by the Holy Ghost. I love being a missionary!

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Hermana Faulk

We’ll see if I can’t get these last few photos sent...

 well, it looks like I can at least get the photo of Hermano Anyelo’s baptism. Woo!

A God of Miracles

March 10, 2014

Wow, has this been an incredible, miracle-filled, last two weeks. First off, we had three days of Carnaval in the house with a schedule of activities to do and lots of study time, which were truly inspired and helped me reflect a lot on my time in the mission, which is now halfway over, on what I have done in these nine months and how I need to improve for the next nine. As I reflected, I studied a lot about miracles and what conversion truly means. My principal goal for the mission is to become truly converted, so that in this year and a half I can not only serve the Lord with what He needs here in Bolivia, but also become the person He needs me to be for everything to come in the future. And so I studied conversion, in particular in the General Conference Liahona from October 2012, which was full of talks about conversion and true discipleship. I was able to make a list of all the things that have been keeping me from being 100% obedient and make several new goals. I also recognized that I have truly started to change as I have improved in one of my goals that I’ve had for a long time, which is to make my prayers more meaningful. As I’ve been learning to do that, I’ve felt my love for the gospel deepening, I feel the guidance of the Spirit more in my life, and I truly feel the purifying influence of the Atonement, especially when I have the chance to study the scriptures daily. I know that this is something every person can feel, but many times we make our prayer and scripture study so robotic that we don’t give way for the Spirit’s influence. I invite you all to make that a personal goal. But I was very grateful for those three days of Carnaval, and at the end we left more excited than ever to get working and see miracles. And we definitely needed miracles - Carnaval started on Sunday on a disappointing note: we had to report, for the second week in a row, zero with baptism dates, which was pretty crushing since we lost a few baptism dates that same day at church.
But we fasted and prayed hard in Carnaval, and miracles happened! We have been working with several families, la familia Soliz and la familia Cuellar, for a while now, and as I’ve mentioned before, they are truly familias de oro, but didn’t want to accept baptism dates. Well, this week we had the incredible miracle of seeing la familia Soliz and almost all of la familia Cuellar accept baptism dates for the 22nd of March, and we are very confident that the rest of la familia Cuellar will also accept the same date in our lesson with them today. The story of these two families is very long, too long to write here, but believe me when I say that I know this was a miracle - all of our best efforts to get them to baptism failed, and it was only when the members stepped in and started friendshipping these families, and more importantly, when the Spirit had the chance to work in them, that they decided to take this step. And then, last night we had yet another miracle, with yet another investigator, Anyelo, who has attended church for months, lives all the standards of the gospel, but never wanted to get baptized. I know I’ve mentioned him before too. Every time we talked about baptism with him, he pulled away more, to the point that he finally told us he did not want to hear us talk about it at all anymore. Anyway, but we went to visit him for the first time in two weeks yesterday, a little nervous about how he would receive us. For the first time, we had a lesson with him without mentioning once the word "baptism." We just talked about faith and read from Alma 32, and as we walked out the door, he said, "Quick question. When is the next baptism in the ward?" We answered, "The 22nd, why?" "Because I would like to be a part of it." We were shocked and SO grateful for the chance to witness this miracle. He said he would really like to get baptized as soon as possible, so he’ll be getting baptized this Saturday!
I want you all to know that I KNOW that miracles haven’t ceased, and that the promise in Jacob 5:72 is true. The Lord really does want to work with us in His vineyard, and He will, but Hna Hincapie and I came up with the recipie to receive His help. It is: obedience + diligence + fasting and prayer = miracles. That is all we’ve tried to do - be exactly obedient, including in the "little things" and be diligent, and put in practice lots of fasting and prayer, and the miracles just keep pouring in, and I love it!!! I recommend that you try it in your own lives. Maybe you aren’t full time missionaries, but you still need the Lord to work side by side with you in your daily life, and He will, as you strive to be exactly obedient to His commandments, be diligent, and fast and pray for His help. I know that this gospel is true, that God lives and that through His Son, Jesus Christ, we can all be saved. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Feliz Carnaval!

February 24, 2014

Hello everyone!! First off, a quick announcement... I won’t be able to write next week, so don’t get worried or confused when there’s no email from me. This coming Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday are Carnaval, which is a festival that originally represented an abandoning of the "natural man" in preparation for Easter, but now is basically just a giant party where the people of Bolivia drink and throw TONS of paint and water at each other for three days. So, we won’t be able to leave the house at all for those three days, with the exception of once to go to church, but just sacrament meeting. And even for that, we’re pretty sure we need to go in taxi. So we’ll see how those three days go! It’ll give us lots of time to study and grow closer to Christ. :)

Well, this has been a kind of tough week, but from the tough weeks we always learn. We had several days where almost all our lessons fell through, and also our plan B, C, D... etc. Haha, but Hemana Hincapie and I know that when lessons fall through, it’s because the Lord needs us somewhere else and knows we won’t go unless all our previous plans don’t work out. That’s why persistence is so important. For example, a few days ago we had exactly that happen, and we started looking for investigators or menos activos, but no one was home. As a last option, we finally had the idea to look for an investigator from several years ago, Carla, and she was home! She received us well and remembered a lot about what the elders taught her a few years ago, and although she said she’s still not sure if she wants to get baptized, she’s excited to be able to learn more once again. Once again, yesterday ALL of our plans and back-up plans fell through, until we decided to look for a referral we had received a few weeks ago. We had looked for her before and she wasn’t home, so we decided to go back once more... and she was home! We weren’t able to teach her right then, but we were able to make plans for another lesson and I’m excited about the chance to teach her. We were also able to contact a family on the street. This family doesn’t belong to our area, but they really need to gospel, and we were grateful to be able to get the referral to pass on. I know and have learned more this week that when our plans fall through, we just need to have the right attitude and recognize that if our plans fall through, it’s because the Lord has a different, better plan.
I also have learned a lot this week about patience. We have been struggling to find anyone that will accept a baptism date recently. We have some great investigators that are progressing well, have gone to church, read the Book of Mormon, pray, and everything, including two families and one single man, but they still don’t want to accept baptism dates. Well, I was getting stressed as the end of the week was coming and we still had no one with a baptism date, so I started trying to really push baptism in every one of our lessons with these people, but it didn’t work. Finally, yesterday Anyelo, the single man, told us, "You know, when you try to push me to baptism in every lesson, it just makes me want to pull away." Well, that definitely hit me hard and I realized, as I reflected on that, that we are here to give the people the tools and invite them to make their own decision. With both of these families and Anyelo, we have done that. Now, they’re hestitating in making the decision, but I can’t obligate anyone to baptism. I just need to help them to feel the Spirit and trust that the Lord will speak to their hearts as they continue to learn, read, pray, and go to church. I know their baptism dates will come, but in the Lord’s time, and not in mine.

Hermana Hincapie and I also had a fantastic opportunity this week to spend the afternoon with Hermana Willard, the spouse of the mission president! It was great - she came with us to our district meeting, then to lunch, then spent three hours going to lessons with us. We had the chance to learn a lot from her about how to truly love the people we teach, and it was especially special beause she is a convert with a story very similar to the story of one of our recent converts, Aline, who got baptized at the beginning of February. We visited Aline with her, and the Spirit was strong as Hermana Willard was able to strengthen Aline in the challenges she has had now that she’s joined the church. I’m so grateful for the Spirit for guiding Hermana Willard to visit us here where we have Aline and knew that Aline needed this visit!
Well, have a great week! Especially have a great Monday, because today is a very special day... Hermana Hincapie’s birthday! We’ll be celebrating in fine fashion with the pensionista :) Anyway, I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Here are a couple of photos from this week. One is of our afternoon with Hermana Willard (the mission president's wife). It straight up POURED but luckily one of our investigators halfway saved us from the rain under a tin canopy thing they had, but we still got pretty wet, ha. But Hermana Willard loved it, said it reminded her of her mission in the Dominican Republic. 

The other picture is of the baptism we had this week, with Jose Velasquez. He is the son of an investigator family. We wouldn’t normally baptize someone this young without their parents, but this family has faithfully attended church for more than six months and are still waiting because the mom is working on getting divorced to her old husband who left her so she can get married to her now-husband, and they can get baptized. Divorce is killer expensive and VERY slow here, but it’s looking like in April this faithful family will FINALLY be able to get baptized. But in the meantime, their son turned eight!